Imagine being able to hop on a train in South Windham, ride to Sebago Lake for a day of fishing or continue through to Fryeburg and on to North Conway, the White Mountains, Vermont and points north in Canada.
Or imagine storing your suitcase under your seat and commuting to work in Portland by rail, staring out the cabin window at the pastoral landscape and wilderness as the train rattles on.
This is not a fantasy of the future. This was our past.
Before the interstate highway system became a reality during the latter half of the 20th century, the railroad was the primary means of transportation in Maine with tracks starting from Portland and heading north to Bangor via Lewiston, east along the coast through Brunswick up to Rockland, and northwest to Fryeburg.
For the past decade, the Maine Department of Transportation has been trying to regain its grand network of railroads by buying back the abandoned rail lines from the same company, Guilford Railroad, that purchased them from defunct railroad companies like the Maine Central and Boston & Maine Railroad during the 1980s.
In Windham, the state owns the old Mountain Division rail line as it runs from Route 202 in South Windham north past the former Sebago Lake Station in Standish and on to Fryeburg.
The state is currently in negotiations to buy a missing link of the Mountain Division rail from Route 202 south to the old S.D. Warren paper mill in Westbrook, now owned by SAPPI Fine Paper.
While Guilford has abandoned this old freight route, it still operates on the final length of the Mountain Division rail line from the Sappi mill to Portland.
The purpose of purchasing the portion of rail from Route 202 to the Westbrook mill is to preserve the railroad corridor so as to someday reconnect with the Amtrak terminal in Portland where the Downeaster now departs on daily trips to Boston.
State transportation officials say it’s only a matter of time before there is passenger rail and freight departing north to Windham, Standish, Fryeburg and beyond.
“The economics start to look a lot better with the rising price of fuel (for automobiles),” said Nate Moulton, director of the state Office of Freight Transportation. “There’s now a demand for alternative transportation and a push toward putting the rail back in service.”
The old Mountain Division Rail was sold in the 1980s due to lack of freight demand. But now with increased interest in freight on the rail line, the Mountain Division Rail is once again looking like a viable option for both freight and commuter service, Moulton said.
State transportation officials have finished the appraisal phase of negotiations with Guilford and have given the “green light” to pursue purchase of the rail line from South Windham to the Westbrook mill.
It is still undetermined when the deal will close or the cost of the purchase.
In the meantime, Windham Parks and Recreation is making use of the old rail line as a bicycle and pedestrian trail.
Last month, the Windham Town Council voted to pursue a federal transportation grant to extend this “Rail-with-Trail” from the Gambo Bridge area down to South Windham.
“It would provide access all the way to the Westbrook line and hopefully to Portland,” said Brian Ross, Windham’s recreation director. “It would be more of a regional trail corridor than just a simple town trail.”
Last year, Windham and Gorham unveiled the new Presumpscot River Loop connecting the Mountain Division “Rail-with-Trail” to a small loop that crosses the old train trestle bridge over the river and back along the Gambo Bridge from Gorham.
David Tobin, former state legislator and current town councilor, lives on Main Street in South Windham where the rail trail abuts his property.
He regularly walks the trail up to the Presumpscot River Loop and remembers fondly during the late 1930s when he used to take train trips from the Depot Street station in South Windham to Sebago Lake Station to visit family.
“It was beautiful all the way up to the mountains,” Tobin said of the old train ride. “I’ve always been for pushing for the return of light rail.”
Wayne Davis, chairman of Trainriders Northeast, is a longtime rail advocate who helped push state legislators to pass the “Rail Service Passenger Act” in 1991 that resulted in the creation of the Downeaster rail service a decade later.
He’s also a member of the Mountain Division Alliance, an advocacy group that aims to keep this possible train route through the Lakes Region at the top of state officials’ minds.
“We’ve poured enough concrete,” Davis said of the massive highway networks. “There’s got to be better away. Once you build a bigger road, it fills up immediately. A balanced transportation system is what we need. We should have choices.”
The cost of reinstating a rail line is a fraction of the investment made to widen a highway, he said. Whereas $500,000 per mile may be needed to renew train tracks, millions of dollars per mile is needed to widen a highway such as the Maine Turnpike I-95.
The state currently owns 300 miles of railroad track, only 58 miles of which is active.
These 58 miles create the revived Rockland railroad branch – now in its third year – that offers seasonal passenger trains from Brunswick to Rockland. The state Department of Transportation is also looking closely at pursuing commuter train service north from Portland to Brunswick in the near future, said Ron Roy, director of the state Office of Passenger Transportation.
“In the future, as we look to move people quicker and more effectively, rail is going to take on a much stronger role,” Roy said. “The roads are only going to get more congested, not less congested, in the future.”
The old Mountain Division rail train tracks runs south from the Gambo Road intersection in South Windham. In the future, the Maine Department of Transportation hopes to revive this old railroad, which runs from Portland through Windham, past Sebago Lake and on to Fryeberg, and is currently negotiating with Guilford Railroad to purchase a southern portion of rail line from South Windham to the S.D. Warren mill in Westbrook.Send questions/comments to the editors.
